Fuck Led Zeppelin!

And fuck Take That, Boyzone, and the Spice Girls too.

New Kids on The Block Are Back.

Life’s a honeymoon for Status Quo’s Rick Parfitt and his new wife

He sat in modest comfort atop his porcelain throne quietly going about “his business”. A relatively booze-free week had assured him this would be a clean (well, as clean as it could be) job. A solid log. No funny business. It was a time for quiet contemplation; that pure moment of peace amidst the whirling chaos of modern life, where a small lock and the general intimacy that only a bathroom visit can provide shielded him from the outside world. He surveyed his surroundings; ahead of him stretched a bed of newly installed Hardwood Walnut flooring. The sales brochure proclaimed that “Few people are not captivated by Walnut’s dark, deep, rich tones that are occasionally highlighted with small sprays of lighter wood”. Captivated was a bit strong he mused, “mildly interested while plonked on the shitter” was more accurate. He had briefly considered suing the supplier under the trades description act, when he could not find nor detect the “warm ambiance” that he was promised the flooring would provide. Decidedly uncaptivated, he continued his scan of the room.

Ahead and to the right stood his shower; a simple affair with sliding doors that never really closed since he drunkenly fell into it many moons ago. To his immediate right was his sink, surrounded by a forest of products; aerosol cans of every description, deodorants with increasingly esoteric names, “Africa”, “Ice”, “Voodoo”, “Ethiopian Coptic”. Behind them stood a graveyard of sorts, pots containing a life time of abandoned toothbrushes. He caught a brief glimpse of himself in the large mirror that shadowed the sink but looked away. He never felt right looking into his own eyes while on the toilet.

Finally his gaze rested on a stack of magazines next to him. Mostly they were copies of the free rag that was delivered monthly by his satellite television providers, glorified listings puffed up with banal tripe. Forgettable in the extreme. Today however there was a new addition to this sorry pile of reading material. Its football pitch sized glossy body dwarfed all below it, lying like a celebrity obsessed monolith. “Hello!” it screamed from its masthead, a magazine with a title that was less a greeting than a threat. Its pure garish existence alone was offensive enough before he inspected the contents of the cover. There, predictably enough, was the massive ant like head of Posh Spice, peering at him with her dead eyes. The headline proclaimed she was unveiling her “stunning new look”, but from the picture he couldn’t make out what this was. Hasn’t she always looked like that? She was however pretending to talk into her shoe, like it was a phone. Was this the new look? “Street Crazy Chic?”, “Haute couture bag lady?”, “catwalk retard?”. Regardless, he was left “unstunned”.

Below that he was reliably informed that Madeline McCann’s parents were “fighting back”. Against what or whom he didn’t know, maybe he had missed a new twist in this story, maybe they were in deepest Morocco in pitched battle against armed child kidnappers. Still, he didn’t care enough to find out any more.

Finally his eyes rested on an item in the lower left hand corner. He slowly read the words, re-reading them twice to make sure he had read them correctly. There, in white capital letters, against a brain zapping red box read:

“Life’s A Honeymoon for Status Quo’s Rick Parfitt and his New Wife”.

He stared at them for what seemed like an eternity. They seemed to drill their way right into the core of his mind and begin to kick around in the ocean of calm that he had previously enjoyed. Why? Why did these words exist? Who was responsible? Who decided that it would be worth the time, effort, energy, expenditure and materials to write, design, print and distribute that headline. Who was that person? Why did they have that job? Every question he asked was followed by another question as his world seemed to unravel around him. Nothing made sense. Nothing could make sense. A lifetime drowned in 24-hour breaking-news headlines screaming war, famine, crime, poverty and death hadn’t delivered the same effect.

Tomorrow the magazine would be gone, but the questions would remain. Later he would weep long into the night.

From The cabinet Of the meat

Yesterday, in between doing very important work and making the world a better place, I was idly wandering around the internet when I came across a delightful fact. In Thailand the movie “Die Hard” is known as “Big Building Fight”. Isn’t that wonderful? One of the great things about the multitude of languages on this Earth is that they can throw up little gems like that post-translation. There’s the old standards like Pepsi’s advertising slogan “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” turning up in Taiwan as “Pepsi Makes Your Ancestors Come Back From The Dead” or Nike’s “Just Do It” being translated into Japanese as “Burn Down A Village Of Babies”, but my favourites are when film titles are transported. “Die Hard”, probably due to the fact that its name is nonsense to begin with, has a number of great global titles. Apart from the aforementioned Thai version, we also have (according to Wikipedia) Russia’s “A Hard Nut To Crack”, Estonia’s “Sturdy Soul” and Hungary’s “Pay Them Hardly For Your Soul”. IMDB, however, disputes his last one but chimes in with the even better Hungarian version “Give your life expensive”, before claiming that the sequel is known as “Your life is more expensive”, and the third film as “The life is always expensive”. What the Hungarians have named Die Hard 4.0 is unclear. Expensive Life 4.0?

Still though, I can’t help but worry that some poor Thai person having rushed home from the video shop with a freshly rented copy of “Big Building Fight” is gonna be sorely disappointed when he doesn’t get to see two large high-rise skyscrapers scrap it out. I know I would be.

I’ve been boogieing around the house to the theme song from the Cosby Show for the last half-hour.

Here’s a link to a site with a big list of downloadable classic TV theme songs. That is all. No link to “The Adventures of Pete and Pete” though, which I just saw on the Den. I havn’t seen it in nearly a decade now, what a classic. Must scower the web to see if its out there.

Also:
Retrojunk
X-Entertainment

The 80s really was the greatest decade. The other night i watched a VHS TAPE of First Blood. It was great, it had cracks and pops and snow on screen, we almost had to “track it”. I can’t wait to tell my children of the days when we would have to “tune” in a pre-recorded film. The soundtrack also wobbled. Ah, memories.

The best Tom Cruise parody video by far.

Jerry O’Connell on Jerry O’Connell, Actor! from Funnyordie.com. Stupid Funny or Die embedding code wont work, and they keep taking it off YouTube, so you’ll have to click the link. Way to go, Funny or Die. Anyways, the video is great.

the parody video Tom Cruise WANTS you to see! on FunnyOrDie.com

Meltdown

You can’t walk into a newsagents these days without being assaulted by a wall of headlines screaming at you that an economic apocalypse is nigh. FTSE, Nasdaq, sub-prime, credit crunch, global markets, Federal Reserves. All of this is meaningless to me, but even I, happy go luck Joe head-up-my-arse is afraid. Why am I afraid? Because of those whoring newspapers and their giant syringe of fear injecting doubt into me. Noam Chomsky got it in one, those be-suited fuckers are just doing the bidding of the be-suited fuckers higher up in the building. Make us all afraid so we’ll wallow in fear and run and hide in our suburban fortresses whilst those greedy cunts continue to fight over the last few Frozen Orange concentrate shares.

Its the biggest con ever. People say religion and God is the biggest hoax ever conceived in order to control people, I think its capitalism. I’m going to become a fully paid up member of the consipiracy theory community, its much easier to understand then all this shit about interest rates and money lending. Doesn’t it all seem a bit fake to you? All this talk of Gordon Gekkos and bulls and bears and Wall Street, all conveniently confusing enough so your average plebian cannot grasp it, yet what we can understand is that Cadbury’s Creme Eggs now cost 85cent and the bank manager is no longer your friend.

A few years ago it was terrorists, last year it was the weather, this year we’re being told to be afraid of stock-brokers. Boooring. Those guys are slipping. I can’t wait til it’s aliens though.

Tom Cruise, Scientist, I salute thee

Everyone needs to leave Tom Cruise alone. This week there’s been allot of wiffle-waffle and hoo haa on the internet about Hollywood megasuperstar Tom Cruise. Why? Well, he just committed a little crime like supporting SCIENTISTS. Yes! Apparently in todays modern and tolerant world if you do something as innocuous as making a short film where you sing the praises of scientists you are fair game for an internet bashing!

Here the video in question.

Have we become that decrepit as a society where entertainers such as Cruise can’t even enthusiastically talk about their love of being a scientist? As Cruise rightly points out, scientists are the only people who will stop when they see a car accident, and they are the only people who can truely help. And this is true! If me or you see a car wreck all we can really do is stand there slack jawed and film it on our phones to send it into tv3 News, whereas a scientist could use his science knowledge to help the people trapped in the wreckage.

This whole debacle betrays a horrible contradiction at the heart of our society. We call for the end to religious extremism and the separation of church and state, yet use the internet (invented by a scientist, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber) to slander the good name of men like Cruise who only want to celebrate scientists and science.  You cannot open a news paper or turn on a television without hearing how our world is melting and unless we change our light bulbs and use pedal push cars it will turn into a pile of goo. All good and well, but who is telling us this? Scientists! The very same scientists that Cruise passionaltely supports. Yet, Mr. Cruise gets lambasted for his efforts. For shame, society, for shame!

I remember when it first emerged that Tom Cruise was a scientist. Kudos to your sir I said to myself, but all around me people were mocking and laughing this gentle soul. “His beliefs are so crazy!” they heckled. Oh really? So I guess its crazy to believe in atomic theory, evolution, and gravity? To want to advance humanity by discovery’s made through the scientific method? What is all the more ironic is that these Cruise-bashers sit there listening to their iPods, texting on their iPhones whilst driving around in their iCars, all of which were invented by scientists! Oh the irony.

Tom Cruise is a wonderful man. He has filled our lives with so many hours of entertainment over the years. Except War of the Worlds, that sucked, but I lay the blame for that squarely at the feet of Dakota Fanning and her screaming. Oh, and the stupid story.  But other than that he kicks ass. But I guess a wild-eyed love of science and kicking ass isn’t enough for our cynical, jaded world. Not even the ability to fire electricity from his hands directly into the heart of Oprah Winfrey is enough.

Well I for one salute you Mr. Cruise. Thank you for having the courage and determination to support our scientific community.  Thank you for being brave enough to leap around on a couch on international television proclaiming your love for your wife. Thank you for entertaining us. Thank you for telling us about the UFOs. Thank you sir. Thank you.

Celine Dion is fucking amazing

Is this old? Who cares, its funny.

Dundalk is the cleanest town in Ireland

My hometown Dundalk has just been named as the cleanest town in Ireland. Which is nice. Its a credit to everyone who helps clean it, the Tidy Towns committee and those of us who don’t throw rubbish on the ground. We have two secret weapons however in our battle against pollution. One is our litter-vigilante, a grey-haired man who seems to constantly drive around looking for rogue pieces of litter. As soon as he spots them he immediately pulls his car to the side of the road (willfully negligent of other occupiers of the thoroughfare), opens up his mobile rubbish containment system (er, his boot), pulls out a litter-picking device and banishes said litter for ever. You see him all the time, stalking the hedgerows and ditches of the Dundalk hinterland in search of wayward Tayto packets or shopping bags. Kudos sir. Our second highly effective weapon is much more devious. A few years ago the Dundalk Institute of Technology installed a giant wind turbine to generate power. But, this mighty windmill is a double-threat in the fight to save the environment, not only does it help provide clean, renewable energy but it is also a giant fan deftly blowing all our rubbish over the Cooley mountains and into Northern Ireland. Thus, we now live in a filth-free paradise and have been commended rightly. Sligo, take note.

Lynchian

This Christmas amongst the presents I received were two things, one a selection of books about filmmaker David Lynch (who is a current interest of mine) and a wonderful iPod touch (from my girlfriend). The iPod touch is fantastic, its more or less an iPhone without the phone part, the best thing about it being the wifi internet capabilities. I’m sold, hooked etc. Wifi capability and a fully working browser should be a part of everything, all phones, all mp3 players. Your toaster, you car, your dildo. In the future everything should be connected to the web. Its the handiest thing I’ve ever owned, being a fantasy football addict, the ability to tinker with my team at a moments notice is invaluable, for a start. When I first saw the iPhone I wasn’t convinced. It just seemed like too much. But the Ipod touch has made me a believer. Now, all they have to do is release a cheaper, 3g pay-as-you-go version and I’m in.

It also can play videos, with a direct link to YouTube being a handy little feature. Some people use their iPods and iPhones to watch entire films, something I haven’t tried yet. But before I do so, I’m going to consider the advice of Mr. David Lynch. (via Why, That’s Delightful)